


we are all going forward; none of us are going back

by Princex_N



Series: the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it [1]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Acceptance, Autism, Autistic Erin, Autistic Hawkeye, Gen, Letters, Pre-Slash, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22188373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Princex_N/pseuds/Princex_N
Summary: "You remind me of my daughter sometimes," BJ says suddenly, and watches as Hawkeye freezes.
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt & Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt, Pre B. J. Hunnicutt/Peg Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Series: the gentleness that comes not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1601140
Comments: 7
Kudos: 126





	we are all going forward; none of us are going back

They're sitting in the swamp together, after hours of surgery that leaves you exhausted out of your mind, but no one wants to sleep this soon after washing the gore off, not if you can help it. Instead, they're sitting with glasses of gin, BJ in his cot with his most recent letter from Peg. Hawkeye just sits, trying to soothe frayed nerves and a still too-active brain with the sway of his body, content enough in the knowledge that Frank is off with Margaret somewhere and that BJ is BJ enough to be comfortable around. 

The quiet moments have to be savored where they can be, even if Hawkeye is still absently rubbing away the lingering sensation of dried blood on his arms and face. 

"You remind me of my daughter sometimes," BJ says suddenly, and watches as Hawkeye freezes. 

He takes that comment with a nervous twitch of his head and fidgets uncomfortably under its weight. "You know I'm not a child, right?" he asks, with the tense nature of someone bracing themself for a blow they've gotten many times before. 

"Awfully big kid you'd make," BJ replies, grinning, but he lets the expression soften when Hawkeye doesn't _kid_ back. "That isn't what I meant," he says instead. "I guess it makes more sense to say that Erin reminds me of you, and not because she's a child."

Hawkeye flounders, trying to piece together what isn't being said (because there is _so much_ that they can't talk about directly, most of the important things have to be wrapped up in casual phrases and plausible deniability, it wouldn't be smart to talk plainly, but that doesn't mean that Hawkeye has gotten very good at it), but it's not until BJ pulls a picture out from the letter and passes it along that Hawkeye understands what he's saying. 

The photo of Erin sitting crunched up between two sofas - her eyes off to the side of the photographer even as she beams at the camera - her hands two little motion blurs in front of her stomach, makes it pretty clear. 

"Oh," Hawkeye says. "You think she's _like me_ ," and BJ smiles. 

(Hawkeye thinks of whispers in the supermarkets and along the elementary school streets; "If _my_ child was like _that_ ", the quiet confessions no one seemed to think twice about saying where he could hear them, and BJ's smile isn't anything like that at all, and Hawkeye thinks 'how strange' and knows that it's exactly why he loves this man so easily.) 

* * *

Sometimes she'll admit that she worries, little snatches of text hidden in a much longer letter, as if keeping the mentions brief will keep them from adding to his usual stress, but BJ isn't quite as concerned as Peg might think he is. 

_'She still doesn't speak much'_ , Peg will write, ' _She's still so particular about her food', 'She sits sometimes for fours if I let her, just flapping her hands in front of her eyes'._ Peg doesn't say she's worried in so many words, but BJ can read between them to figure out what she's saying regardless. 

He wonders how to tell her why it doesn't bother him like it might have before he came here. What a strange thing to get out of a war, but BJ reads about his daughter flapping her hands contentedly and gets hit with a wave of fondness he wouldn't have had otherwise. 

_'I don't think you should worry too much,'_ he could say. _'I have a friend here who does a lot of the same things Erin does. Your letters are so much more vivid because I know him; I can practically see her in the way he smells his food suspiciously and habitually, the careful and meticulous way he does almost everything - from eating pretzels to performing complex surgeries, and the rhythm of his hands or his body during those quiet and nearly peaceful hours. If Erin is anything like him, we're all the better for it.'_

_'He's the most talented doctor here, and even if he wasn't a surgical genius, he's the best man I've ever known. I've seen the way his emotions can overwhelm him, but he doesn't let them get shut off, instead he lets it make him kind and caring and compassionate despite the hurt it causes him. He cares so deeply it's a wonder he's survived this long here and sometimes I worry that this bottomless well of empathy isn't going to drown him one day; one small event that drags him under completely. He'd let it, if it meant that someone else got to keep their head above the water a little longer. Having him as my best friend holds me together more often than not, it seems. I just hope I'm doing him even a fraction of the favor in return.'_

BJ can never bring himself to send those letters.

He's not ashamed of them, but some things require more delicacy than a letter delivered from overseas, and BJ can't act as if he isn't being too obvious for even the most oblivious censors. 

These letters he keeps tucked away, hidden, to one day be brought out again when he knows where he stands. Tossed into a fire in the worst-case scenarios, shared and celebrated in the best. 

(The none-too-subtle hints Peg throws into a couple of her letters makes him think he knows what direction they're leaning, but it's safer not to get his hopes up.) 

Instead he keeps it shorter. _'Don't worry too much about Erin yet. It sounds like you're both doing just fine, and if you're still worried when I get home, we can talk about where to go from there.'_

_'But before all that, I really think you should meet my friend, Hawkeye.'_

* * *

' _BJ tells me about your daughter a lot,'_ Peggy reads, surprised but still open to the sight of cramped handwriting that doesn't belong to her husband. ' _Apparently he thinks we have a lot in common. I can see why you might be concerned.'_

It hits a little somber, to Peggy, but she can still read the joke in the text easily and isn't it funny how she can almost imagine the tone it would be said in despite the fact that she's never heard this man speak in her life. 

' _That being said, I don't think you should worry too much. Your daughter is yours and BJ's, and any kid raised by people like you two would be lucky beyond belief.'_

And isn't it funny how much conviction is settled there, despite the fact that this man has never met _her_ in his life.

' _She'll be different, and she'll probably always know it. And it'll be difficult, because life is already hard, and she might have it harder. That's the way the dice land sometimes, but I know that you'd take every opportunity to give her the tools she'll need to succeed anyway - however that looks for her. I'd like to give you as much advice as I can, but even though we're the same, we're probably pretty different too. That's how it is around here, with a lot of the others, but we all have common ground and I hope that my insight will be enough to assure you that the two of you can figure each other out just fine.'_

Peggy has read what her husband hasn't been saying in his letters, has known since the very first one she got after he'd arrived in Korea. She knows exactly what he's been thinking, and as she reads on, taking each sideways spoken vulnerability gifted to her just in the hopes that it _might_ help, as she reads the jokes and the kindness and the unwavering belief in her and Erin and BJ, Peggy is pretty sure that he's not wrong to think it. 

It might be stranger, for her to think the same even though they've never met, but from what she's heard from BJ, Hawkeye Pierce just has that effect on people. 

She thinks that she'd love to get to know it firsthand. 

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote [a post about autistic members of the 4077](https://princex-n.tumblr.com/post/187737241893/autistic-mash-4077th), and then said it wasn't enough and made BJ's kid autistic too. 
> 
> (You'd better believe I'm writing a fic about them too, though)


End file.
